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T5 strike is called off

Engineering union Amicus called off more strikes at Heathrow's T5 this week after agreeing a deal at arbitration talks with employers over a long-running bonus dispute.

Around 90 steelworkers were due to strike on Tuesday and Wednesday this week but suspended the action following a site meeting on Monday. Weekend working will also resume.

Client BAA, five employers including Watson Steel and Fast Track, and the union held talks at conciliation service Acas on Wednesday last week.

Amicus regional official Frank Westerman said: 'We finally agreed a deal but we were in London and our men on the site had gone home.

'The communication failure resulted in our men not reporting for work, effectively taking strike action, and they did not come in at the weekend.'

But at Monday's meeting 90 per cent of the men agreed to Amicus recommendations to postpone more industrial action and go to binding arbitration - to fine tune the deal - at Acas on October 27.

A union source said: 'The trouble was that the Acas talks were too close to the strike date. We think we've got a good case to present to the arbitrator.'

A BAA spokeswoman said that last Thursday's strike action - the first ever strike on T5 - had 'not fundamentally affected' the job.

She said: 'Although 90 men walked off on Thursday morning, around 90 per cent came back the next day, which isn't too bad for a Friday.'

The Amicus steelworkers, who are employed under the Naeci 'blue book' agreement, voted for strike action two weeks ago in pursuit of an extra £1 an hour 'bussing allowance' to compensate for ravelling to the T5 site.

This came after a £1-an-hour 'performance bonus' - seen on site as an unofficial bussing allowance - was granted to Amicus electricians employed under the Major Projects Agreement.

But employers had refused the Naeci steelworkers the extra cash, saying it fell outside the terms of the agreement.